"Real" Government Mod

[Janders]

(Yes this is my first post, don't hate me!)
I am loving the game so far, and would love to help in some modding efforts, since they obviously have such potential, especially once the improved editor is released. My first desire is to expand and correct the governments availible in the game.
Basically, there are currently five governments, in three eras:
In the First "primitive" era, your only option is Despotism. It sucks royally, as should be expected.
In the "ancient" era, you have a choice between Republic and Monarchy, both of which function well, and somewhat "realistically."
Finally, in the "modern" era, you have the choice between Democracy and Communism, both of which seem to function nicely.
I have two interconnected problems with the current system. One is the lack of variety. I hate to see 10 civs in the modern age, with 7 in democracy and 3 in communism. So boring. I'd like at least one more late game option. Also, I dislike the fact that these 10 civs are all in democracy or communism in 1740, when the game is lasting at least until 2000.

As a solution to these problems, I offer the following new governments:
(1) Democracy, same stats, just pushed back a couple techs.
(2) Constitutional Monarchy, mixed stats of democracy, republic, and monarchy. Inferior to democracy, but availible many techs earlier.
(3) Fascism. There is already a fascist mod out, but I would like to look at the mechanics of making this government work in the game. I think the Fascist game government would also cover many non-fascist military dictatorships....
(4) Possibly another modern government, either a fundamentalism wanna-be, or a modern despotism that is delineated from fascism and communism.

What do you think of these ideas, and the game mechanisms via which they should operate?

[genghisvick]

Sounds good, I wonder when/if they will release the improved editor??????

[Janders]

Thats the Million $ Question!

Here are my current stats in an Attempt to create "Fascism" in the game. Don't think I am trying to recreate the wheel, but i thought by first doing it independantly, then looking at the already existant fascist patch, I might get a better feeling on how to make it work game wise.

Rate Cap: 10, same as Demo And Comm (now known as D and C)
Worker rate 2 (D=3, C=2)
Assimilation Chance 5% (D=4, C=4)
Draft Limit = 3 (D=1, C=2)
MP Limit = 5 (D=0, C=5)
Corruption = Nuisance (D=Minimal, C=Communal)
PreReq = The Corp. (D=Democracy, C=Communism)
Resistance Modifyer vs. = -5 to ancient, 4 to modern (D=C= -5 to ancient, 5 to modern)
Hurrying via Forced Labor (D=$, C=labor)
Free Units per town, city, metro= 1, 5, 10 (D=0,0,0 ; C=2,4,8)
Diplomats, Spies are regular (I changed C's spies to Veteran... they weren't already).
Immune to Nada (D=propaganda, C=nada)
Propaganda Modifier = F, D, C
Anarchy = 30, 35, 25
Despotism = 25, 30, 20
Monarchy = 12, 20, 5
Communism = 5, 10, 0
republic = -5, 5, -10
democracy = -5, -5, -20
Fascism = 0, -10, -15

War Weariness = none (D=High, C=none)

Feel Free to try it out

[Janders]

Here is my rationale for my "fascist" changes... and please give me suggestions for it or other gov't types.

I wanted it to be a militaristic option asside from the large empire of the "soviet" model. Hence, it has better "military" advantages, with more corruption.
Hence, higher Draft limit, more military policing, more free units (though not from towns), and higher corruption.
They also are in between communism and democracy on the propaganda front.

My current uncertainty is whether or not to give them a trade bonus. I'd love to give them half of the typical trade bonus, but this seems impossible. I'll have to play with the balencing to see whether or not this makes them too strong or weak. I also made the Japanese, Germans, and Aztecs favour this government.

[Dracon II]

Whatever happened to the vast smorgasbord of Governments, as in CtP? Granted, most extra Governments in CtP were fictional and made for the future ages which aren't included in Civ3, but why not have some interesting alternatives? Just because there aren't historical examples, doesn't mean things couldn't have been different.

Perhaps there should be two democracies? One, the Ancient Athenian style, and the Modern style.
I reckon that the idea of a Corporate Republic isn't a bad one, and why'd they omit fundamentalism? Fundamentalist regimes exist.

[izmircali]

If i remember correctly, CTP had a lot more variables for governments. It was based on bad and good and ot numbers but it did allow for a lot moe variables. Wish we had this option in civ3

[Pyrodrew]

The designer who made the popular Civ2 Fascism patch already made the Civ3 Fascism patch - it's located in the Files Forum I believe.

Doesn't someone have CtP2 here & they could just post the type of governments they had... then everyone could pick, comment, & choose from that list to start.

[Dracon II]

CtP 2 had the same governments as it's predecessor.

[Karhgath]

List of possible governments :

Anarchy - Duh

Despotism - You rule, they obey.

Monarchy/Feudalism - You're the King/Emperor baby!

Oligarchy - You and your pals rules. That can be anything from church-controlled state to a tribal council.

Communism - The non-Marx, abused version(china, russia)

Socialism - More true to Marx, idealist.

Social-Democracy - Mix of socialism and democracy (France, Canada/Quebec(somewhat))

Ancient Democracy - Ruled by a large subset of people(probably adult men). Those rulers have more power than in today's 'democracy'.

Republic - A ruler is chosen and he is the head of the state. That is you =) The Senate is right under you.

Corporate Republic - A republic where the market and capitalism drives everything.

Parliamentary Democracy - Elected leaders(Parliament) take all the decisions. This is modern Democracy.

True Democracy - People rules, period. Not very effective, but very happy citizens. Would not be a good Civ3 govt tho, and not a good govt in real life at all anyway, hehe

City State - Each cities are ruled independantly and the cooperate between each others(Babylon/Akkad/etc. for example)

Fascism - Dictatorship + Communism + War/Opression

Fundamentalism - (Very Very)Strict beliefs(mostly religious).

Totalitarism - Total Autocratic/Monopolistic control, modern Despotism.

Patriarchism/Matriarchism - Very early govt, ruled by men or women entirely, whe the other caste has no power(Amazons for examples).

Constitutional Monarchy - The constitution is above the King and he is still the supreme leader, but in practice he is more a figure of authority and unity.

Colonialism - Expand, Expand, Expand and Take Over opposition.


The problem with Civilization games tho is that a government seems to be a final oneness. In fact, the govt can have many levels, kinda like in SMAC. So, if you look at canada, they are a constitutional monarchy because they still answer to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II(and no, I am NOT kidding), they have a general governor, a parliament democracy, with a somewhat social-democratic approach, and a confederation with federal states. And I'm missing a lot. And the USA is, as far as I know, a Democracy, with a republic and federal states. So a govt is NEVER a final thing... but I agree that for simplicity, it's probably better that way =) But something like SMAC would have been cooler tho.

[Plutarck]

On the last point, it's quite correct that really a broad name for a style of government rally doesn't explain define the government very well. American Democracy is extremely different from Russian Democracy, etc.

However the real point was this. America is best considered as a Capitalist Aristrocratic Corporate Oligarchy.

First the market of supply, demand, and capitalistic profit decide what happens most broadly (Capitalist). Then the corporations are chosen via a process which can best be described as Aristocratic (Aristocratic and Corporate), where "people" choose who is the best to lead by purchasing their stock (the equivalent of voting, even if they don't know they are doing it) and/or buying their product. But the Corporations don't rule directly, instead they choose who to rule through monetary backing and their general "annointing" through not-always-pulic means (very similar to the Theocracy the Catholic church had during the dark ages, where they weren't in power directly but chose who was crowned king and thus controlled what was done indirectly. Of course if the people disagreed there was always the threat of God's Wrath, IE Recession).

The people chosen are pretty much the friends of these various cliches of Corporate Aristocrats, and thus an Oligarchy is formed. The "will of the people" is entirely irrelevant as it is controlled in a most incredibly efficient fashion through marketing, advertising, and the massage of ballots so the people "can't go wrong", from the Corporation's standpoint.

So American can best be described as a Corporate Oligarchy. But the best possible explanation is Capitalist Aristocratic Corporate Oligarchy.

But try figuring out how THAT would map to Civ3


One big problem between Civ3 and CTP is the fact that there as so vastly few "important" categorys to grade a government. In CTP there was Workday, Wages, Rations, Science, Gold, Military Upkeep, Martial Law, Corruption, City Cap (where for every city above the number cap you gained +1 unhappyness in most governments, but not all), and finally the Max Science Rate. Not to mention special units available only in that government, but there were only like 3 total in the game.

In Civ3 there are about...what, 5 categorys that really have a major effect on the government?

Not really a whole lot of variation on that theme, ya know? And there is no comparison function to see ahead of time how you'll function in a government, so that really doesn't help any.

If Optimum City Number was government tied somehow editable and not so dependent only upon the map size and Corruption had more than 5 options, we might actually be able to get some proper governmental diversity going.


For now the game as-is won't really support more than 2-3 more governments. And at any one time the most you could choose from would be about 3.

I think the ancient age should be left as-is more or less, Democracy should be removed from the Middle Ages and moved to the Industrial Age (available near the same time as Democracy, early industrial age), and add Imperialism (which focuses mostly on a large empire, so very low corruption to allow for that but few free units per city and not many other bonuses) which will be usable into the early industrial age and perhaps replaced by Colonialism. Also add Constitutional Monarchy (upgraded Monarchy), and some kind of upgrade to Republic.

Then in the early industrial Demo and Comm, then towards the mid the upgrade for Imperialism to Colonialsm.

Then in the late industrial/Modern Ages it might add Fascism/Fundamentalism.

That sounds the best that can be done, but we REALLY need more fine-tune control of governments. Even just a kind of optimum city cap control would really, really make us able to have lots of fun with coming up with better government options.

Course we need to be able to add techs without hex editing too

[Karhgath]

The problem is... will the AI use the added govt? I haven't tested it yet, BUT, I think the only thing they do is rush to get their favorite govt and that's it. Not really sure tho.

And yes, you are quite correct, most of today's "democracy" are in fact oligarchy, but some are elected oligarchy and other's not, so the 'democratic' part is the election, but really, is that really a democracy? I mean, Athens had a more advanced democracy that we have today, as every adult male was able to argument and take part in all cities' decisions. Today it would be too hard to do that, so that why most modern govt are some part an oligarchy.

If you add all the social/political/law/trade sectors where govt can differ, you cannot really summarize them with only one word. There should be like 5 sectors of a govt :

State - Federal/Confederal, Feudalism, Unified, Sovereign State
Social - Democracy, Socialism, Social-Democracy, Anarchy, Totalitarism
Political - Republic, Monarchy, Military State
Law - Constitutional, Religious, Autocratic, Oligarchy
Trade - Corporatism, Colonialism, Free Market, Closed Market

And so on... kinda like in SMAC, that would be great. So, for example, for Canada you would have :
Confederal/Social-Democracy/Monarchy/Constitutional/Corporatism

For USA, that would be:
Federal/Democracy/Republic/Oligarchy/Free Market

Fascism would be:
Unified/Totalitarism/Military State/Autocratic/Closed Market

Or something to that effect, not 100% sure, I'm no political science expert =) Each would give benefits to your civ. State would be related to corruption and stuff like that, Social would be the effectivness of the citizens and science, Political would affect diplomacy, Law would the happiness and trade would be, well, trade =)

Oh well... I guess we'll have to wait until CivIV =)

[Shadow99]

Given the option to I'd make the following governmental changes:

Add Theocracy to either the late ancient or early middle ages. This would give a third option in the 'mid game'. Which If I had a say in it would recieve a special curruption reduction via temples/churches, but without such curruption would be horrid...

Dictatorship in the early industrial. Troops 'keep the peace' by adding smileys & reducing curruption (well other than their own). Requires large military or you'll have god awful curruption again...

Facism in the mid to late industrial age. Troops make people happy & crime is low (gastopo), but churches/temples have no effects.

Parlimentary Democracy/Constitutional Monarchy as an upgrade to the now old monarchy style by the late industrial/early modern era. Better in controlling curruption, better at supporting units, & gives better bonus to production (as democracies get, though slightly reduced from those).

Fudanmentalism in the early modern era. This is an upgrade of the now classic Theocracy with better states (no unhappiness, but no happiness either all are content). Conscription is simple & no crime, but can't use libraries & universities to add research (though you still get their culture benefit).

& lastly Corporate republic in the late late modern or 'future' era (If I can ever add eras I'm adding a short 'future era' with a few more techs not seen in the 'modern' era). Features similiar to democracy though production is decreased & commerce is gained. marketpalces/banks produce happiness & reduce curruption....

I've thought abotu alot of others, but given the right editor optiosn (adding a few extra flags for instance) these would go a long way to fleshing out the game & making it less a cummunism/democracy battle in the end game...

[JamesJKirk]

About fundamentalism...

There's no such thing as a Fundamentalist government-type, there are different governments with fundamentalist aspects, and there have been theocratic regimes, but these are more patterned on hereditary monarchies than anything else. Also, Civ is about playing against great powers, and no modern ones would fit any sort of Fundamentalist government type.
Give me examples and I'll debunk them:
Iran is an Islamic Republic, its laws are based on Islamic law, but it has a popularly elected parliament and president, albeit a supreme spiritual leader.
You wanna go for the gold and say the Taliban? They're just a repressive dictatorship whose laws also follow a fundamental tilt.

If you argue that fundamentalism is used to show the fanaticism and following of the people, I say the same sort of thing can happen in any country, and if you look at "fundamentalist" the people in them are far from unhappy (Sure the Iranian revolution was one of the most popularly supported in history, but this is a result of a variety of secular and religious groups coalescing to overthrow the Shah, much like the French and Russian revolutions, the people couldn't forsee the events that would take place or the paths their countries would follow).
However I would definitely support Fundie as a sort of SE choice, if only civ3 had it.

....in other things....

I don't think there should be so much different forms to differentiate between Constitutional Monarchies (unless you're talking Renaissance-era England) and Parliamentary and Presidential Democracies, they all are modern democracies, no countries governments are going to be exactly the same as all countries have different histories, so this should be kept streamlined in a "Democracy" government, which I agree should probably be moved to industrial times.
I think the current republic could be renamed City-State and cover ancient representative governments, and a Renaissance Republic could be added to represent the governments that existed in places like Italy and the Netherlands.
A middle-ages/renaissance Monarchy shoud also be added, as they functioned much different than ancient ones.
Facism should definitely be there...and Steven Strayers approach would probably be the best route to follow in this.
One future government could be useful, prehaps a CTP-style Corporate Republic or Technocracy, or even a higher form of democracy if it's plausible. But definitely NO ecotopias, all my earlier arguments would apply to this.
I think we should remember that Civ3 is supposed to be fun, not a history simulator, so goverments should be added for variety and play balance, not just because they once existed.

Thinking of all this for some reason makes me mourn the passing of the CivI advisors, I loved seeing the different types of people with different leaders. oh well.

[darkangel]

Wow, I felt like I was back in my PS grad courses reading this thread. I got a lot of warm fuzzies - Great discussion guys !

[ginzuishou]

Where would Poland-Lithuania's Sejem or Diet fit in (from the Middle Ages and into the Modern era before their dissection by neighbors)? I always found their system kind of interesting; having a diet of nobles who would elect a king to rule for life.